Drum Tuning 101: How to Tune Your Drum Set
The drum set can be tuned by ear or using a drum tuner. In order to tune your drum set, you will need the following: A drum key, a drumstick, a drum tuner (though this is optional), and most of all – patience.
Drum tuning has a large impact on the overall sound of your kit. Good tuning can make a cheap drum set sound great and poor tuning can make even the most expensive kit sound bad!
Simply following a few tips can make all the difference. Drum tuning shall no longer be an intimidating task!
You should get into the habit of tuning drums regularly, not just when you buy a new set of drum heads! If you practice regularly then check their tuning before playing, and retune when the sound or response has changed.
If you are a professional drummer then you should check tuning before rehearsals, sessions, and shows, especially after transport or a head change.
Contents
What you will need
- A drum key
- A drumstick
- A drum tuner (Optional)
- Patience
How to Tune a Drum Kit
- Take off all the drum heads when replacing them, and clean the kit with a dry, soft cloth. For a routine tune-up, you can leave the heads fitted and work on one drum at a time. Make sure you get every nook and corner, especially the rims and bearing edges.
- Pick any part of the kit to start with, the snare for example. Place the batter (top drum head) and center it.
- Place the drum hoop on top of the head to secure it and screw in all the tension rods with your fingers until each one just meets the hoop without slack. Start them gently to avoid cross-threading, then use the key for small, even adjustments.
- Now pick one tension rod and tighten by a small, measured amount, such as a quarter-turn of the drum key and then tighten the tension rod diagonal to it by the same amount. This means if your first rod was a 3 o’clock, then you will tighten the 9 o’clock tension rod next. Work your way around all the tension rods using this diagonal tuning method (either clockwise or anti-clockwise). The reason drummers do this is to maintain even tension on the drum head as they tune.
- After each round, tap the drum head with your stick to check what it sounds like. Keep tightening the rods (gradually reduce the amount you turn) until you feel you are close to the appropriate pitch.
- Once you close in on the target pitch, it is time to fine-tune. Just tap the stick an inch from the outer edge of the head (close to the tension rods) and check which spots sound dissonant. If any particular spot sounds ‘off’, you need to either tighten or loosen the tension rod. If the pitch is sharp, loosen it a little, then approach the target again by tightening. If it is flat, tighten it slightly. Use the same light tap and distance from each rod, and recheck neighboring rods because one adjustment affects the rest of the head.
- Continue to tap, listen, and tighten/loosen until you are pleased with what you hear. The goal is to ensure that the sound is even across the head.
- Now repeat this for the other drum heads and voilà! On a snare, disengage the wires while comparing pitches, and handle the thin snare-side head gently. It needs its own tuning rather than automatically matching the batter.
Tuning Tips (Batter vs Resonant Heads)
- The top drum head is called the batter head and it reverberates when it is struck by the drum stick. The bottom drum head is called the resonant head and it reverberates because the air between the two heads compresses and expands. The fastest way to get better at tuning is to internalize the sonic relationship between the resonant and the batter. The relationship matters across the kit, but toms, snare drums, and bass drums do not all need the same head pitches or tension. Listen to the whole drum after checking each head, then choose a response that suits the music.
- Batter (top) and resonant (bottom) tuned to the same pitch can produce long sustain on many toms, especially with similar heads. Treat this as a starting point, then listen to the drum in its normal mount.
- Batter tuned lower than resonant will have a more controlled response on many toms, with the result depending on the pitch difference, heads, and drum.
- Batter tuned higher than resonant will lead to more attack and a different decay on many toms. A large difference between head pitches can shorten sustain, but “thuddy” is not a guaranteed result.
Pro-Tip: Since you strike the batter heads, they wear out faster. Inspect the resonant head as well, and replace it when damaged, distorted, or unable to hold the sound you want. It does not need an automatic one-for-two replacement schedule.
Using a Better Type of Drum Key
Most drummers just carry a universal standard drum key and use that for tuning.
However, more specialized types of drum keys can be bought for a relatively inexpensive price. These can make drum tuning faster and easier.
Speed keys are particularly useful for quickly turning the lugs when replacing heads.
Check out our article on the different types of drum keys for more information.
Using a Drum Tuner
Tuning drums can be a bit intimidating for beginners. It only gets worse if your ears aren’t trained to recognize subtle differences in sound.
It would be ideal to have a relative pitch and pull off a drum tune in a matter of minutes. The truth is that even professional drummers can struggle a little to get all the pitches right.
I believe a drum tuner is an indispensable piece of equipment, at least in the initial stages of your drumming career.
It speeds up the process and gives you more time to practice your rudiments. We did a whole article on drum tuning and also reviewed five of the best drum tuners on the market that you can check out.
Dampening the Heads
Many drummers put pillows or the soft case of the kick drum in the cavity of the kick to dampen it. Some people use the ol’ gaffer tape to plaster some foam or cymbal felt to the tom drum head.
Other drummers use the more ‘pro’ and specially designed Moongel available at stores on the snare. The true old skool legends tape their wallets to floor toms to extract all kinds of oomph.
Either way, the goal of dampening is to reduce or eliminate unwarranted overtones. Just make sure you don’t do anything drastic that ends up ripping the skin.
Conclusion
Drum sets can be tuned in a matter of minutes and even amateurs can get great results. The more you play, the faster you get at tuning drums. Always remember to make each head consistent around its own tuning rods. The batter and resonant heads can be set to different pitches, and different drums in the kit do not need equal tension. If something sounds off when tapping, simply tighten or loosen the corresponding tension rod appropriately.
Using a drum tuner is a great way to speed up the tuning process. It can help you repeat a tuning, but it is not a foolproof guarantee of a good sound. Pitch tuners and tension gauges measure different things; follow your device’s instructions, then check the full drum by ear and save the settings you like.
Once you get better, don’t be afraid to experiment with dampening by placing pillows or other materials in the kick drum. This may help reduce some of the overtones and yield a more balanced tone.
Remember, the old school legends used to tape their wallets or other objects to the drums that needed dampening if they didn’t have official drum muffling equipment!
